Choices
by tastewithouttalent
Summary: "It was supposed to be easy." A fight finally gets the better of the legendary meister and Death Scythe.
1. Red

There are too many of them. Stein knows this. There were only supposed to be a pair of the fallen clan left to deal with, a brother and a sister who survived when the rest of their family were wiped out by the first DWMA assault. It was sloppy for the first team to miss them at all, but Stein treated most of the injuries from the first wave, and even he has to admit that staying and being thorough would have resulted in at least two deaths, maybe more depending on how hard the pair fought. So he and Spirit went out to handle the remaining survivors. It was supposed to be easy. It _was_ easy, until the meister felt a flicker at the back of his Soul Perception. The cold awareness hit him even before he got a good count, intuition saying _too many_ even before he knew how many that was.

They put up a good fight. They're _winning_, actually, for several minutes, but Stein is still just one person, legendary meister or not, and somewhere around the eighth collapsing enemy he can feel the heaviness of exhaustion in his muscles, a foreshadowing of death too impatient to wait for the actual last breath to leave his lungs.

He keeps going, starts blocking with Spirit's handle as well as the blade itself, waits to use Soul Force until the last possible second to incapacitate the enemies as long as possible, but they just keep coming and he keeps slowing. He doesn't say anything aloud but he can feel Spirit's awareness of his movements forming into shadowed certainty at the back of his head.

_Senpai_, he starts, but Spirit speaks up and cuts him off.

_I'm not going anywhere._

It makes Stein smile in spite of the situation. _I didn't expect you to._

It doesn't happen during the brief conversation. Stein has had Spirit in his head enough that he can keep up his end of a discussion without missing a beat of combat, and this is no more a distraction than usual. It's a breath after, as the meister swings hard through one of the approaching enemies - there are fewer of them, now, than there were, but still too many to ease the panic winding cold through Stein's veins. The scythe blade slices neatly through the torso and grasping arms alike, and Stein twists in the opposite direction with an extended palm to catch an approaching monster full in the face.

It's not that he doesn't know there is an enemy behind him. It's just that he's out of options, with the scythe clutched in one hand and the other barely coming up in time to stop the first incoming attack. Even as it is a claw rakes along his hairline, tears the skin and sends a flood of hot liquid across his cheek even before the pain hits.

Then his balance shifts, and there is a chill all through his body as he _knows_ what has happened, some instinctive part of his soul flinching back before he feels the hurt. He can hear breathing sharp and hard behind him and he recognizes that breathing, he's spent years listening to it through bedroom doors and next to him while he doesn't sleep, more recently. Then there's an impact, the weight of two forms at once slamming into his shoulder, and only his expectation of the hit allows him to keep his footing. They shift away, and he's turning and Spirit is stumbling forward, stabbing forward with a weapon-form arm, and Stein doesn't need to see the spill of blood across the dark of the weapon's jacket to know.

The creature over Spirit's shoulder gurgles and crumples, and Spirit stays on his feet for a second longer. Stein is walking towards him, movements cold and stiff with the impossible weight of the knowledge he won't accept, and Spirit turns to look over his shoulder at the approaching meister and manages a smile. He has always had a beautiful smile.

"Stein," he says, and his voice is the same even when it trembles in his throat. "I just saved your life."

"Senpai," Stein starts. He can't feel his lips, can't feel his throat. The word sounds like it's coming from a million miles away. "Senpai, what did you do."

"I told you," Spirit says, but his voice is shaking worse, now, and he chokes and turns away to cough wetly. Stein comes forward, reaches out to brush his fingers against Spirit's shoulder, and he's close enough that he can see the color that the weapon spits up, the way the blood drips between his fingers. Spirit brings his hand away, stares at the liquid for a moment. Stein can hear the wet sound to his sucking inhale and he's reaching out for the back of Spirit's coat, grabbing at the weapon with his free arm as the redhead smiles faintly and murmurs, "I always hated blood."

Stein's got him as his knees give out, takes enough of the other man's weight that they both go down to the ground relatively slowly rather than collapsing. They still end up on the ground, though, Spirit's shoulders digging into the support of Stein's arm and Stein's fingers clutching into a desperate fist in the front of Spirit's shirt. It's red, now, blood spilling out of Spirit's body to stain the pale cloth until it's a perfect match for his hair.

"Senpai," Stein says. His voice is shaking. "Stay with me."

Spirit smiles, reaches up to touch the line of the meister's face. "You sound scared. You've never sounded scared, before." His face crumples into pain for a moment and he coughs up another mouthful of blood. "I'm dying, aren't I."

"No." Stein forces his voice into perfect calm, this time, icy with the effort. "No, you're not going to die. You're not."

"I can't breathe," Spirit says, and it's true, Stein can hear him fighting for breath. He's certainly got a punctured lung at the very least, probably worse from the continuing flow of blood staining his shirt. "If _you're_ afraid, then I'm not going to make it."

"You _are_," Stein says. There is an irony, that for once Spirit is the one calm and steady and he is the one going to pieces. It's not amusing as much as it is horrifying, further evidence of what he knows, still knows, can't run from forever or even for very long. His glasses are blurry and he pulls them off, drops them and instantly forgets where they landed, and Spirit's fingers come up against his cheek. His hand is cold. Spirit has always been warm, before.

The weapon opens his mouth to speak, but instead of sound he coughs up more blood. It stains Stein's shirt, lies sticky and hot against his skin as if Spirit is spitting up all the warmth in his body in liquid form, leaving him cold and shaking.

"_Spirit_," Stein hears himself saying, the sound choking and desperate, and Spirit shudders but manages to smile again, tips his head in against Stein's arm as his hand drops to the meister's shirt.

"You never call me that," he murmurs. "Not since we were kids. Don't cry, Stein."

Stein doesn't know why Spirit is telling him not to cry. He's not crying, he just can't see straight, so when he leans in his mouth hits Spirit's forehead instead of his mouth, and he can't quite breathe without a sobbing sound but _Spirit's_ the one who can't breathe, Spirit's the one shaking, not him.

Eventually the shaking stops. Stein takes a breath but he can't _hear_ anything over his own painfully harsh inhales so he catches in a lungful of desperate air and holds it, waits and waits and _waits_ for the echoing inhale from the form in his arms. He waits until his vision is going blurry, until his head is swimming and his lungs burning for air, and there's still nothing from his partner.

"Spirit?" he asks. He sounds plaintive, lost, like the child-self he talked to in the midst of his own Madness. "Senpai?"

It's not until he hears the voices in the back of his head, the dark insanity that Spirit always kept at bay, that he _knows_ that he's lost him.

At least the awareness doesn't linger long.


	2. Silver

Spirit manages to avoid the certainty until the last opportunity to brace himself has passed him by. He can feel the cold creeping dread in the back of Stein's head, the weight of exhaustion pulling the meister's arms slow and lethargic until even Soul Force can't inject enough shock through the younger man's blood to keep them moving. Spirit can feel the extra jolt of desperation in the way his handle shudders when he blocks hits and in the heat of blood trickling down Stein's arm from another not-quite-dodged attack. There's even a momentary flicker of fright - for _him_, Spirit knows without thinking about it - under the word when Stein's voice drops _Senpai_ into his thoughts.

_I'm not going anywhere_, Spirit shoots back. It's crucial that Stein not _say_ anything, that he not acknowledge what Spirit can sense at the back of his thoughts, because Spirit is _very_ good at avoidance, and as long as Stein doesn't say anything he can keep it up.

There's a smile, bright and startling like the sun in winter, and Spirit sighs in relief even before Stein gives back, _I didn't expect you to._

There's another swing through the air, the movement that always feels incongruously like flying regardless of how much blood is coating Spirit's blade. The approaching creature, the grasping arms - they offer almost no resistance at all, as if he's hit a particularly recalcitrant patch of smoke and no more. The dark liquid of almost-blood splashes back over his blade, though, up onto Stein's sleeve, casting the pale fabric into a curved splash of shadow as the meister twists sharply to shove his hand hard into the chest of another attacker.

Spirit sees the third coming. It's over Stein's shoulder but having his back to an enemy has never stopped the meister from defending himself before; Spirit can feel the Soul Perception illuminating all their surroundings, Stein _must_ know the thing is coming. But he's not moving to block, he's not moving _fast_ enough, and there is a moment of cold horror that dowses Spirit as he realizes that Stein _can't_ go faster, that there is not enough _time_.

The scythe edge is blurring into transformation when Stein snaps at him. _Spirit _don't_! _The shock of hearing his given name in his meister's voice combined with the whipcrack of forced dominance under the younger man's voice freezes him. It stalls him mid-transformation for less than a breath, less than a heartbeat, just a crackle of thought before he can regain his self-control and keep going.

That's all it takes. Spirit was too late in seeing the oncoming attack, or too naturally obedient to Stein, or maybe it was the distraction of stopping Spirit that kept Stein from coming up with some impossible defense. It doesn't matter, really. Stein is twisting sharp even as Spirit properly drops into human form, stumbling and clumsy with his nearly aborted shift, and there's a burst of heat across Spirit's shirt that he doesn't recognize right away. Stein's hand crashes into the attacker's chest, hard enough that Spirit can hear the creature gasp breathless with the impact even before the lethal electricity burns through its veins and shoves it backward.

"Stein!" Spirit is coming forward and lifting a hand to touch his wet shirt, it feels like his skin is on fire with the heat, and he recognizes the texture of the liquid on his fingers even before Stein half-turns and drops to the ground, too fast for Spirit to catch him. The meister's soaked in blood, too red to be from the enemies, and there's an awful ragged gash gushing liquid from his throat, and Spirit doesn't need to be a doctor, doesn't need _anything_ to know.

"_Stein_," he wails, crumpling nearly as boneless as his dying meister, and Stein can't get a hand up to even attempt to stem the rush of blood from his throat but he reaches for Spirit, desperate fingers that start to drop before Spirit is able to fling himself forward to catch at his meister's hand. Stein's skin is cold, not just the usual cool that the meister general maintains but _cold_, his hand feels like ice, and even as Spirit reaches out to touch his face Stein's eyelids flutter and don't open again. There's a dreadful sound, wet and ragged, and Stein's chest doesn't move _nearly_ as much as it should for the desperation in that noise.

"Stein," Spirit says, or tries to say, but his throat is doing weird things, closing up and going liquid with panicked tears. He can barely hear himself clearly, there's no way Stein can catch the words. That's why the meister doesn't react, surely, it must be a result of the way the word strangles the weapon and not because Stein can't answer.

If he could, Spirit would lie to himself for minutes, let himself hover in the self-deception of 'dying' and not 'dead.' But Stein has always been all too skilled at making him face reality, in this as in everything else, and even in human form Spirit can _feel_ the connection between them pull tight and break more than he can sense the faint warmth of life fade from Stein's chilled fingertips.

There are other aspects to his life, pieces wholly separate from his meister that he has formed in the years they spent apart, things that are unaffected by this. And he is Death Scythe, and he needs to be strong, for Lord Death and for the Academy and for Maka, especially for Maka. But in the first few minutes, when there isn't anyone to see, Spirit tips his head, and lets the pain hit him, and crumples into the tears that at least push away the endless darkness of the future, if they do nothing to assuage the pain of the present. There is no one to chide him for it, now.


End file.
